Chimborazo Park

Chimborazo Park is a park and historic land site in Richmond, Virginia. It is located atop Chimborazo Hill, which was named in 1802 due to its topographical likeness to Chimborazo Mountain in Ecuador. It became a favorite duelling ground during the early 19th century, and it was used by the Confederacy to organize the troops coming into Richmond on the eve of the American Civil War in April 1861. From 1862 to 1865, the Confederate States Army established a hospital atop the hill, treating 76,000 injured Confederate soldiers. After the war's end, it became a refuge camp for former African-American slaves, but it was vacated by the Freedmen's Bureau by 1 April 1866. In 1874, the Board of Aldermen purchased 35 acres of the hill for $35,000 and created a public park. In 1880, the last of the park's wooden houses were auctioned off, and the last structures on the hill disappeared in 1900. Chimborazo was praised as a beautiful and serene park, and it became one of the first parks in the city to prohibit walking on the grass, to open a municipal playground in the city, and to screen free movies for the public.